I would guess the major reason why most of the players who joined WOWP during 1.X iterations was the assumption at the start that it was a PvP MMO and was going to continue down that trend with more pvp focused content. Somewhere along the lines that "vision" obviously changed from the devs, leading to alot of disappointments and not following through promises being made; more game modes & the big ol grinding issue of no clan wars. Or any real tangible content to utilize clans - other than just acquiring the name tag. When I saw the advert for this game online on some random WWII website, it stated a heavy focus on "PvP" and large sized battles "15v15" online players. So anyone interested in competitive gameplay would easily gravitate towards such advertisement. WG's job is done - I join and what do I see - exactly 15v15 all players pvp battles. Ofcourse at the time (just like now with 2.0) alot of the newcomers were starting in low tiers. So it was only natural to see alot of new faces and no signs of any AI.

Regarding the bots. Compared to now and what we had with 1.9 - I can safely say the 1.9 bots are way better than 2.0. Why? Because they listened & responded to our F2, F4, F6 commands - Coordinate attack, Attacking Target, Clear My Tail. These 3 commands were crucial in turning the battle around when 90% of the battle consisted of bots with 1 player on either side. The player who utilized their bots better almost always wins the "AI circle jerk". For whatever reason they did not follow through with this feature onto 2.0. Which obviously is an oversight that's going to cost them in the future if they don't implement it back.

The whole purpose of this section of the forum is to engage with WG or the developers in the form of giving advice, feedback, suggestions to make the game better. In my experience all that effort has resulted to naught. But since we're all putting our tinfoil hats on I might as well indulge on the idea of giving ideas into how to make bots better in 2.0 (seeing as they won't go anytime soon):

> First start with programming bots to acknowledge player commands like before with 1.9. Bring back the basics - Coordinate attack, Clear my tail.

> In order to eliminate bias from players giving these commands, the bots should be programmed to assist at least 50% of the entire team bot forces - like not to have your ENTIRE bot team chase down the one enemy plane you can't shake off. That would be counter-intuitive and a penalty to your team, espeically so for conquest where your forces need to be adequately spread out to be efficient on capping/defending/raiding etc. Or even better only have bots that are within a certain range of your plane assist you in any command, or while being in the same cap circle etc. Many ways to program and balance this.

> Pinging on the map has always been an underrated, sometimes abused system, that nobody really pays attention to. Why not utilize it for directing your bots where to go? Have a key to bind and while holding down, with the left mouse button, just ping the map and you can coordinate the majority of your bot forces to go at a military base, a command center, an airfield etc. By default the CTRL key is used to ping the map for general purposes, mostly to annoy players with that annoying pinging sound. Honestly there needs to be more a reason to use this feature. Bots can be that. Best way to balance this is have a cool down period of say 30 seconds. Could be less. Could be more. Or just have an ability to assign a "Squadron Leader" (really the name could be anything - just a guy) that can organize where the bots should go. Put those 2 features together and you have a coordinated AI team that actually knows what they are doing.

I mean you can go wild with ideas. But if nobody in the right group in WG or in Persha Studio reads this section. Then all this is wasted pixelated text. Just waiting to be once again archived for what ever purpose. Usually to collect dust I suppose. But that's what I propose they do with bots in 2.0. Whether they take this up to the developers is up to them. As the saying goes "The ball is in your court". It always have been from the very start.

These are some solid suggestions, for the duration that we have to deal with bots. Not quite my "get rid of them" idea, but a well laid out compromise.

I wouldn't mind if they turn the Conquest Mode into PvE, in which 5-7 humans go up against 12-15 bots.

Make the Training Room free of charge (except consumables/premiums) and we'll have the Battle.net 1998

This is my thinking on bots. They really don't work, unless it's a human co-op vs bots. This is Armored Warfare's biggest strength...and also a reason why a lot of World of Tanks players don't care for it; it's not pvp. My compromise suggestion is that when match population drops to a critical level, default from human only PvP mode to a human vs bots PvE mode. This would also enable the tracking of separate, meaningful stats. As it is now, kill per sortie? So what. Kills vs bots doesn't mean anything.

Played two games yesterday, rather stumbled through two games.
This time i tried the f-94.
Twice there was only one human at the other side.
So making a game without bots is just not possible.
That being said, bots seem even more stupid than in v1.9.
They just hover around.

In 1.9 the bots had only two big design faults, they would stall like lemmings against HF's and if they were on your tail, you could make them crash easily. (eg by manoeuvring near a mountainside or in a canyon)
If they would fix those two mistakes, bots would not be a problem (in that version).
In 2.0 the crashing behaviour still is a problem (got 3 tailing bots to crash into a mountainside), the stalling i don't know, but might be less worse with the nerfing of altitude bandings (which is also stupid, especially in case of this f-94d which IRL has more or less the same service ceiling as the sabre ).
They should have fixed the erratic bot behaviour prior to 2.0.
In 1.9 there were several ways to use the bots to your advantage, in 2.0 they just seem to hover around and fill the airspace.

what??? I have been playing against and with bots??? jesus christ i feel like i have been duped! I have been killing so many aircrafts that i thought i was a BEAST! i feel so used!

Sarcasm aside, it matters a lot less when you still lose because your friendly bots are too stupid to do anything on their own and the enemy ones aren't. Getting 5 capped out because your bots are useless, while you have 12-13k for doing your job, is infuriating.

I like the idea of bots, in so far as the conquest mode uses them as an object to flip caps, etc. Gives it a MOBA feel.

But as a replacement for human teammates, it doesn't work. The idea of having to carry the team is a big feature of WOT and WOWS, I get it - there are many complex mechanics at play that the skill ceiling is very high. However in WOWP, the idea of having to carry a team is very real and almost expected. It diminishes accomplishment in a match, since you're matched against bots, and quite frankly makes playing often times feel exhausting when you're having to actually single-handedly win the game.

Played two games yesterday, rather stumbled through two games.
This time i tried the f-94.
Twice there was only one human at the other side.
So making a game without bots is just not possible.
That being said, bots seem even more stupid than in v1.9.
They just hover around.

In 1.9 the bots had only two big design faults, they would stall like lemmings against HF's and if they were on your tail, you could make them crash easily. (eg by manoeuvring near a mountainside or in a canyon)
If they would fix those two mistakes, bots would not be a problem (in that version).
In 2.0 the crashing behaviour still is a problem (got 3 tailing bots to crash into a mountainside), the stalling i don't know, but might be less worse with the nerfing of altitude bandings (which is also stupid, especially in case of this f-94d which IRL has more or less the same service ceiling as the sabre ).
They should have fixed the erratic bot behaviour prior to 2.0.
In 1.9 there were several ways to use the bots to your advantage, in 2.0 they just seem to hover around and fill the airspace.

The thing is, you had a queue time of about one minute to make that match and you were both probably the same tier. If you had a queue time of two to three minutes and three tiers per match, a 6 man per side match would certainly be possible. That might not play out very well in the conquest mode, as even with only 3 nodes, that would be 2 planes per zone. Although, that could lead to some interesting map strategy. Again, the defense bots would have to go also and some different method of capturing the zone (occupation) would have to be enacted. That would lead to some other benefit having to be assigned to ground attack. BUT, it would be PvP again.

Again, if population drops so low that MM absolutely cannot make a match in a reasonable time, just default to co-op mode. At least that would give players the ability to play together using teamwork. There just isn't any teamwork with bot teams the way it is now. Even if function keys were workable, it's not the same as working with players.

The thing is, you had a queue time of about one minute to make that match and you were both probably the same tier. If you had a queue time of two to three minutes and three tiers per match, a 6 man per side match would certainly be possible. That might not play out very well in the conquest mode, as even with only 3 nodes, that would be 2 planes per zone. Although, that could lead to some interesting map strategy. Again, the defense bots would have to go also and some different method of capturing the zone (occupation) would have to be enacted. That would lead to some other benefit having to be assigned to ground attack. BUT, it would be PvP again.

Again, if population drops so low that MM absolutely cannot make a match in a reasonable time, just default to co-op mode. At least that would give players the ability to play together using teamwork. There just isn't any teamwork with bot teams the way it is now. Even if function keys were workable, it's not the same as working with players.

Queue time was about 3 minutes, a little bit more than it used to be in 1.9 (mostly between 1-2 minutes).
I was only tier IX in both matches, all the bots and the opposing human GA were Tier VIII.

Does the game even have the player population to fill 12 man rosters and not wait too long?

There are times right now where I am in queue for 2 minutes + waiting for MM to give me something. For all that waiting, I still get matches that have something like 1-2 players per team and the rest filled with bots. That does not point to a healthy player population to constitute a game where it's rosters filled with only players.

I'm not saying the bots are great. I'm saying, based what I've seen so far with my arrival with 2.0, that this game cannot support all-player rosters of any good size and queued wait times.

If we go to pure player rosters, I do NOT want tiny roster sizes nor longer wait times than what it already is.

I have XP to grind, sitting in 2-4 minute queue times is not conducive to that.

The subject of bots has been a touchy one for some time. The suggestion has been brought up to the team. As it stands the MM will prioritize human players over that of bots. The idea is to lower the amount of time it takes to get into a match, while having a full match so there isn't just 1v1, 2v2 so on and so forth. In the future, it's not out of the realm of possibilities to change things. It will be announced when, or if that will occur.

The subject of bots has been a touchy one for some time. The suggestion has been brought up to the team. As it stands the MM will prioritize human players over that of bots. The idea is to lower the amount of time it takes to get into a match, while having a full match so there isn't just 1v1, 2v2 so on and so forth. In the future, it's not out of the realm of possibilities to change things. It will be announced when, or if that will occur.

Do NOT make these queue times any longer. Some may be fine with the idea of sitting in the queues for 3+ minutes, but not all of us do.

Do NOT make these queue times any longer. Some may be fine with the idea of sitting in the queues for 3+ minutes, but not all of us do.

So, if there aren't enough humans to fill reasonable matches in a reasonable time, default to a co-op mode, where you have humans against the bots (which is essentially what you have now, except sometimes one human gets luckier with better bots). This way, the queue time can stay low, we still get to fight bots (which we do now), but we also could have more teamwork and teamplay, which we do not have now.

I don't think co-op human against bots will solve anything, you could use something like that as training mode, but for the real deal?
It will be even less skill required. Would you play it, knowing your only opponents are (stupid) bots?
In my opinion Conquest mode needs lots of human players to succeed.

It's just not an option to offer this mode when you have such a low population.

At least Team Deatmatch mode was better suited for filling blank spots with bots. (at least if they tackle the outstalling and crashing behaviour)
But that doesn't seem an option anymore.

I don't think co-op human against bots will solve anything, you could use something like that as training mode, but for the real deal?
It will be even less skill required. Would you play it, knowing your only opponents are (stupid) bots?
In my opinion Conquest mode needs lots of human players to succeed.

It's just not an option to offer this mode when you have such a low population.

At least Team Deatmatch mode was better suited for filling blank spots with bots. (at least if they tackle the outstalling and crashing behaviour)
But that doesn't seem an option anymore.

I would rather play WITH humans vs stupid bots than with stupid bots against humans and less stupid bots. If my bots, in non ground attack craft, are circling a PLANT waiting for their bomb re-arm timer instead of actually capping a zone, while the other team's bots are being productive...than ya, I'm all for playing against stupid bots, with human teammates.

You say that it would be "even less skill required". How so? I'm usually on a team with only 1 or 2 other humans, so 2 or three humans on the opposing team. I will usually score better than most, if not all, of the human players on BOTH teams....and, I'm just barely above "average".

So, you ask, "Would you play it, knowing your only opponents are bots?" Yes, I would...because, essentially, I already am. Early in a match, I try to identify the most dangerous human on the enemy team, hunt him, send him to the respawn timer, and again every time I see him, until he's got a long spawn timer and is not getting much chance to fight my bots. So, while that one dangerous player is on time-out, I'm fighting what? You guessed it, bots.

I would much rather fight ALONGSIDE that player who I keep sending to time-out instead of against him. I'm ruining his game. All that's going to do is encourage him to quit. Worse, how about next game, he doesn't have someone hunting him, puts in a good performance, but his bots fail and he STILL loses, despite doing well personally. That player will be headed for the door, due to not being able to play with any teamwork (humans on both teams is less humans PER team!) and for having to deal with bots picking the winner in a match he does well in. It's literally the definition of "you can't win for losing."

I agree conquest needs lots of humans to succeed, even more so than supremacy, sudden death. So, while I primarily hope for NO BOTS, AT ALL, I think a good compromise, when the population is too low for human vs humans, is human co-op vs bots. It will allow players to use teamwork and be rewarded for it along with not having a feeling that the ai is deciding the outcomes, regardless of human performance. Which, will, hopefully, result in more players sticking around. Which, in turn, will result in enough humans to go human vs human PvP again.

Also, the difficulty level of bot AI can be improved. Right now, the bots aren't even set up with proper logic on how to win a match, prioritize objectives, targets, etc. Actually decent bot ai would give humans a challenge. AI will have very high situational awareness. AI will be able to utilize it's aircraft to maximum performance. AI can have spot on aim...and in fact would require that aim is toned down to match "human like" level.

When I play an online, multiplayer game, it's to enjoy a sense of teamwork. When the population is too low to support full human teams, having the humans split up reduces the amount of teamwork that is even possible in a match, for BOTH teams, and ALL the humans.

Aluminum Foil Hat Time: I'm all for working with other humans to kill ai. We're headed that way in real life, so now's a good a time as any to start getting in that mindset of working as a team vs ai!

With less skill involved, i mean: Most bot-behaviour is very predictable. It takes you only a couple of games to predict their behaviour.
From that moment on, there's not much skill involved anymore.
And yes there were some ace-bots in tierX, but if you're gonna replace the bots with these bots, there will also be a lot of complaining because they fly better than most humans.
There was just no middle ground between the very stupid bots and these ace-bots.

In my opinion, human team vs bot team will just look like a big training room.
Might be nice for a beginning player, but i don't think it will keep players playing this game in the long haul.

I don't think co-op human against bots will solve anything, you could use something like that as training mode, but for the real deal?
It will be even less skill required. Would you play it, knowing your only opponents are (stupid) bots?
In my opinion Conquest mode needs lots of human players to succeed.

It's just not an option to offer this mode when you have such a low population.

At least Team Deatmatch mode was better suited for filling blank spots with bots. (at least if they tackle the outstalling and crashing behaviour)
But that doesn't seem an option anymore.

We don't even have the players to do Full Player Rosters. I don't like the idea of sitting in the queue for 5 minutes to only get a 2 vs 2 fight. The bots are stupid, but the sitting in queue for a long time for low population teams is horrid.

We can already see low populations ingame. Tonight with primetime game hours, the best I saw tonight was 7 per team.

Lord help you if you are not playing on primetime. There are many times where I am the only player for my team and it's the same for the red team, 1 player.

I seriously doubt the current WoWP population can support Full Team Rosters with meaningful player numbers.

Being a EU-player myself, it is most of the time only one human at each side when i'm playing.
In the previous version I did not recall that as a real problem.
You could use the bots to your advantage and still carry the battle.
In current version there is just way too little you can do in a team filled with bots.

On EU-forum somebody did a statistic to find out how many players were playing now (based on the hall-of-fame numbers)

The result of their equation was that more or less the same number of players was playing now as in pre 2.0 days.
Which means they have attracted a lot of new players, since 80% or more of the vets are not playing anymore.
If they could just retain the vets, playerbase would have been doubled by now.

They should also make the login system on a worldwide account server, not different accounts for ru, eu, na anymore.
This has crippled the system since the beginning.
Let everyone login on the same server, from there on you do a ping to all available servers, then you can either connect manually to a preferred server or let the system automatically connect you to the server with the lowest ping.